BipolART: Art in Therapy for Bipolar Disorder

Description

Acknowledgements; Contents; List of Figures; Chapter1 Prologue -- By Way of an Introduction; A Little Background; Art and Therapy; Chapter2 Doodles -- From the Beginning; Chapter3 Drawing Doodles; First Example; A Second Example; Where Doodling Might Take You?; Chapter4 Development of the Doodle; Chapter5 A Biological Journey; Chapter6 Reality -- Drawings from Life; Chapter7 A Short Musical Interlude; Chapter8 Abstract Art -- A Mind Roaming Free; Chapter9 Humour -- A Means of Relief; Chapter10 Goaded by Geometry; Chapter11 Epilogue: Art, Creativity and Bipolar Disorder.;Written with disarming honesty by a long-term sufferer of bipolar disorder, with more than half a century's experience of intervention and treatment, this highly personal volume traces the effectiveness of a therapy modality for mental illness that has gained much ground in the past two decades: art. The author began to use art, and in particular doodling, from 1998 as a way of externalizing his feelings. Its expressiveness, accessibility and energy-efficiency was ideally suited to the catatonia he experienced during the bouts of depression that are a feature of bipolar disorder, while as the.